Favorable Light In The Odyssey

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Vocabulary.com defines the word odyssey as “a long, wandering, and eventful journey”. In the Odyssey, Odysseus goes on his own odyssey that lasts for 20 years and includes a lot of women who help him tremendously. Homer uses the names of ships, Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, Queen Arete, princess Nausicca, the goddess Circe, and the goddess Athena, to help Odysseus with his odyssey, or journey, back to Ithaca. Because of this, The Odyssey portrays women in a favorable light. To begin, an example of Homer portraying women in a favorable light with The Odyssey shows when the goddess Circe gives Odysseus and his men her bag of winds. By doing this, Circe becomes a woman with a favorable light around her since she helped the great Odysseus on his way …show more content…
When Odysseus washes up along the shore of the land of the Phaecians, all the other women ran away besides Nausicca who had courage put into her heart by Athena and agreed to show Odysseus the way to town. Nausicca made an offer to Odysseus where she would “’introduce [Odysseus] at the house of [Nausicca’s] excellent father, where [she could] tell [him] that [he] will meet all the best people among the Phaeacians’” (Homer 67). Certainly, the help that Nausicca offers to Odysseus presents and portrays her in a favorable light as she was the only one on the beach to help Odysseus. In addition, Homer portrays Queen Arete of the Phaeacians in a favorable light when Odysseus must go pray for help from her rather than her husband, Alcinous. When Nausicca explains to Odysseus the plan to get him to her house for help, she instructs him to “’never mind [her father], but go up to [her] mother, and lay [his] hands upon [her] knees if [he] would like to get home quickly’” (Homer 68). Because of this, Arete has a favorable light shone upon her since the Greeks do not normally place a high respect on women but the Phaeacians consider Arete to have a higher respect than Alcinous when asking for something. By going over Alcinous and instead going to Arete, Homer shows that Arete receives a favorable